Are You Persuaded that God is Good? How He Loves You First and Anxiety Can End

Hey friend, If you forget to pray, you're probably not persuaded that God is good, He hears you and that He loved you first. This episode explains how God has to love you with all of his heart, mind, soul and strength or He could not require that from you and I tell my story about getting free from anxiety.

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Transcript

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God loves you with all of his heart, all of his soul, all of his mind, and all of his strength. That's the only way he could require it of you, is because he did it first. Do you love God but forget to pray? Or feel guilty instead of enjoying his presence? I understand. I know how unsatisfying time with God can feel if we believe he's distant or busy. I'm Lenora, mom, Jesus lover, and former international trainer. If you're looking to feel closer with God without fear or pressure, have a greater ability to receive from him and desire more confidence to make an impact with your own life. Well, get some coffee and let's talk. If you're carrying stress and want support with prayer, I wrote a book to help you. 100 Prayers, Releasing 100 Cares. It's full of real stories, scripture, and 100 prayers for every part of life. A link to the book is in the show notes. How persuaded are you that God is for you? You already believe there is a God. If you're listening to this podcast, you know he exists. But my question for you today is how persuaded are you that God is for you? I mean, is God just observing you? Is he there for you sometimes, like a you know, a loose connection on a speaker or a microphone? Or is he for you? Is he your best friend? If you have a battle to fight in life, is he someone you trust? You know he will be there for you. If you are afraid, you know he's the place to run to. You know you can call on his name and he's gonna be there. If you have a request and you're saying, God, I really need this for my family, or you share a particular desire you have in your heart, do you believe that he is going to hear you? And by the way, the word hear in the original language, it's it's a term that means, if you heard me, you'd be moving, kind of like what my parents did when I was a little kid, or what I did to my kids is I'd say, Did you hear me? Because I assumed if you heard me, you'd be moving. So if you call on God, do you think he hears you? When you ask for something, do you think he takes action? Now, if you don't believe that he's taking action, then we've got trust issues. Or we don't know, is it a game? What's the game here? How do I make him take action? I see. I think we have a lot of assumptions about God, a lot of things we think we know about God, and we throw up a prayer here and there, but we don't know, we're not persuaded that he hears us, meaning that he's also taking action. Now, some people think it's actually weird to expect God to do something when you have a prayer. You kind of like, well, I hope he does it. I hope I'm not being too arrogant to ask him for something. Again, that tells me we don't know his character. Now, if you know much about your Bible, it's a book full of promises. Full of promises. I mean, there's stories and warnings and different things too, but it is a book full of promises. And if you have a friend who gave you a bunch of promises and said, hey, in our relationship, this is how it's going to go. Here's some of the benefits, here's some of the commitments, like a marriage. If you get married, here's the benefits. Here's what we offer to each other, and here's the boundaries because of that relationship. Here's what you are saying no to outside of this relationship. You're no longer seeing someone else as far as dating, that type of thing, or whatever you want to call that. But with God, it's like you're gonna have one God. If you're gonna have the God of the Bible, you're saying, I have one God because he says I am the only God. And if you have him, then you have his promises. You have whatever he's like, that's what you have. That's who you're connected to, who you are in covenant relationship with. And again, quickest way to answer what covenant is, is a marriage. Now, in a God kind of marriage, you fully belong to each other. Think of Abraham. Abraham's in the Old Testament, and God actually called himself the God of Abraham. I'm the one Abraham can call on, and I'm there for him. Now, if you have said yes to God, he is your God. A covenant means I belong to you, you belong to me. We belong to each other. I belong to God, but God also belongs to me. But again, what kind of character did I connect with? What kind of personality? I mean, can he be trusted? So I'm gonna go through some verses really quick here because you have to get to know your Bible. You can get to know God by saying, I accept Jesus Christ. Maybe you went forward in a church or someone prayed with you somewhere and you just called on Jesus even by yourself, which is what I did. I mean, I started off in church and and my mom prayed with me, and I prayed on my own. But when I, as a teenager, came back to God and really came, let's say, recommitted my life to him, it was a conversation with me and him. And I let him love me and I let him rescue me from fear and guilt and shame. And then I felt like, oh my gosh, this is the love I've always been looking for. And I wanted to be in relationship with him. And then I began over time to study the Bible. I went to Bible school for a couple of years. Best decision I ever made after just calling on the name of Jesus. A Bible school that just taught me the Bible for the Bible's sake. I want you to get to know God. And we all need that because it gives us a foundation so that we can have trust. And yet your learning with him will never stop. But again, I'm gonna go through a couple of verses because God is for you. So I'm just gonna read you a few verses or portions of verses. Here we go. Romans 8.31. If God is for us, who can be against us? Romans 8.32. He who did not spare his own son, how will he not also graciously give us all things? I mean, if God gave you his own son, who gave his life for you, why would you wonder he's gonna hold back in other areas? Psalms 56, 9. This I know that God is for me. The person who wrote that Psalm said, This I know, I'm confident of it. Psalms 118.6. The Lord is on my side, I will not fear. What can man do to me? Deuteronomy 24. For the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you, to give you the victory. Isaiah 41, 10, fear not, for I am with you, I will help you, I will uphold you. Isaiah 41, 13. I hold your right hand. It is I who say to you, fear not, for I am the one who helps you. Psalms 46, 1. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help. Psalms 27, 1. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? Quick side story. A couple of years ago, I dealt with anxiety like I never had before for a brief period of time. But my attitude was, I'm not going to live like this. I am not going to live a life full of anxiety. I had faced some trauma. I had been shaken to my core, or really, some ancient things in my life kind of had been stirred up, and I didn't know what to do. But I said, God, I am not living like this. And I know God enough to know that since Jesus said in John 10, 10, the thief only comes, the only reason that the thief comes is to steal from you, to kill you, to destroy anything around you. I just said, gave you the amplified version of that verse. But Jesus said, the thief comes only to kill, to steal, and to destroy. But I came so that you would have life and have it to the full. Jesus said it so simply. And I knew that at my core, I know he came to set me free. I know Bible verses. I have meditated on them. I have thought about them. I have experienced the goodness of God in many different ways. And so when I dealt with this new challenge, I thought, no way. I'm not living this way. I'm not going to start having to take pills. And trust me, I considered it. And I'm not saying it's wrong if you do do whatever you need to to help you through a phase, but I want you to know God has a delivery plan for you. And for me, it I needed some good tears. I needed some good conversation. I went to a counselor who understood trauma. I learned a ton about myself, but I knew God had a pathway through for me. And I am anxiety free. And I'm telling you, I've dealt with sleep challenges a couple of times throughout my life. And again, I thought, no, I'm not living this way because I know God is for me. He's a God of peace. So ultimately, what this episode is about is you have got to get to know God better, to be confident that He is for you and that He has answers for you, and they're good answers. We go through battles in life. Everyone does. There's a verse that says, Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but God shall deliver us out of them all. A-L-L, all. And that means all. So whatever I face, I have learned to fight with the word of God by getting it in front of my face, putting it in my ears, and speaking it out of my mouths. And I want to encourage you to do that. I don't know what you're facing. I don't know what you're going through right now or what you've gone through in the past. And maybe people have said, you're never going to get past this. I want to tell you, that's a lie. You can get free from shame, from guilt, from fear, from disease. God is a healer. He is good, but you are going to have to seek him. You're going to have to get to know him so that you're persuaded of it. Jeremiah 29, 11 says, For I know the plans I have for you, plans for peace and not for evil. But let me say again, we have to become persuaded. Persuaded, because that's what helps us lean on God, trust him, and follow through with him to a good path. Yeah, sometimes there's some time. And the thief would love to convince you God is not for you, or well, look at what happened, or give you reasons to try to persuade you he's not trustworthy. Maybe you've had a lot of people break their trust with you in the past, or you've thought God wasn't for you, you don't understand what happened, and things did not work out the way you wanted to. Maybe you've even been really angry at God. I've been there. Turns out it's never God's fault. So let me read you a couple more verses. Romans 8, 38, and 39. I do happen to be using the ESV version. Anyway, I'm sure that neither death nor life nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Persuasion comes from knowing we need to know his love is unbreakable. God's not moody. God's not like a daisy. He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, he loves me not. No, he loves you, he loves you, he loves you. God is always going to be patient with you. He is kind. He is all the things 1 Corinthians 13 talks about. Romans 8, 31 and 32. If God is for us, who can be against us? As I said earlier, God already gave you his son. He covered everything with that sacrifice. So the everything you need is covered under the promise and provision of his son. Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. You need to become persuaded that God's for you. So you need to feed, meditate on, say, read the word of God. That will help persuade you. You need to know what God says. If you're going to be persuaded that a contract is solid, if maybe you have a business and you sign a contract with someone else, first of all, you want to know what did you sign up for? You should know the terms of the contract, but then you need to go to your contract and know, wait a minute, what are my rights here? You have rights with God because he wants you to have rights. It's like if a parent adopts a child, that child now has rights to that whole family. That's what you have with God. You have rights with God because he wants you to. Religion says, oh, don't be so bold. Don't think God will do that. Who do you think you are? That is from the thief. God does not have an ego problem. He's not insecure. He on purpose gives you himself because he wants you as his child. And that means he's giving you everything that he is. It's more amazing than we realize, but we have to become persuaded. 1 John 4.16 talks about being persuaded. So we have come to know and to believe the love God has for us. We've had some experience with it. Now we're starting to trust it, rely on it. 1 John 4, 18 and 19. Perfect love casts out fear. We love because he first loved us. God loved you first. He said, I chose you, I picked you, I've given my love to you. You know, the Bible says to love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Now, if God loved you first, that means he already loves you with all of his heart, all of his soul, all of his mind, and all of his strength, or he could not require that from you. Think about that for a minute. If God is requiring you to love him first, that is the first commandment in the Old Testament, and the greatest commandment in the New Testament, is to love God with all of your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength. And again, if first John chapter 4 says, We love because he first loved us, then sound reasoning says that God first loved you with all of his heart, all of his soul, all of his mind, and all of his strength. This is the God of the universe we're talking about. You could just ponder on that for the next six months and your life would change. God loves you with all of his heart, all of his soul, all of his mind, and all of his strength. That's the only way he could require it of you, is because he did it first. Psalms 34, 8 says, Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Psalms 27, 13. I would have lost heart unless I believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord. I've been in dark seasons of my life personally where I felt like there wasn't a way out. I didn't know the Bible as well. I didn't know God as well. And I was convinced somehow that I had committed the unpardonable sin. I was in a rough, dark spot, I'd say mental health-wise, even. And that's way too common these days. But I'm telling you, um, those thoughts and those feelings of shame that come against you and tell you there's no way out for you, they are flat-out lies because Jesus paid it all. And God wants you in his family. He wants you whole. He wants you to have a good, providing job. He wants to give you favor on the job. He wants to heal your body. He wants to set your mind free. He wants you free from fear. He wants your sleep to be sweet. I promise you, because he promised you. My promise doesn't mean anything if he didn't promise it. I'm just trying to persuade you on a podcast. But God has persuaded you through the gift of his son, and he's filled his promises in the Bible. And I'm telling you, you want to start reading it. You've got to get it in you to become confident because we have feelings, but we also have a brain and we need to reason through is God really for me? And we need to experience that God is for me. And he is. You can begin to trust him. And if I find myself really wrestling with trust, even though I think I know what the Bible says, that tells me there's part of my heart that's convinced otherwise. So you may have experiences that are telling you, uh, I know in my head God should be trustworthy, but in my heart, I am really struggling. That just means you have some broken-hearted trust issues. He's greater than your heart. He understands it, he's patient with you. We just want to get to know him better so that fear goes away. We want to get to the place where we can forgive everyone who the enemy has used to break our trust. Any situation that has come up and been used as an argument saying that God is not for you. It's not true. But it's what the Bible calls the fight of faith. It is a good fight of faith. The reason why it's a good fight is because God can be trusted and because God will help you fight, and He's already done actually all the work. Our job is to cast down wicked imaginations. That's from uh, I want to say first Corinthians, but you can look that up. Cast down wicked imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. So see, I have to have knowledge of God to throw down lies that say he's not for me, or to say it's not going to work out for you this time. One of my habits is I will speak the word of God out loud regularly. It's one way I fight. It's called from Ephesians chapter six, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Use the word of God and say it out loud. Say it out loud, especially when your mind and your emotions are feeling the opposite. In fact, that's one of the best times to fight the fight of faith out loud, is when everything in you feels like God can't be trusted. There was a season in my life back in my twenties where I didn't feel like I believed anything. I didn't believe God was real, didn't believe anything. Thankfully, I knew a Bible verse that said, Let every man be a liar, that God's word would be held truth. And I thought about myself and said, Lenore, that includes you. I knew that me not believing God didn't change the truth about his character. It just separated me from him. So, in a way, blindly, meaning by no feelings, I chose to keep going the direction of God because I had been away from him already, and that's not a good path. So though I didn't feel anything, I just stayed basically on course. And as my heart softened again, I began to recognize and be persuaded. And I'd say by sense and by knowledge and by experience, I've become persuaded. I'd like to say fully persuaded. I am fully persuaded about Jesus Christ. I am fully persuaded that Jesus has done everything for me to have all of his promises. But there are still areas in my life where I have easy wins with prayer and other areas where it's a fight of faith in this area to trust God's really going to come through. I do know that he's with me either way. Thankfully, I know that. I don't have to feel it. It's more like two plus two is four. Okay. I don't have to feel that two plus two equals four. It just is a mathematical truth. God is with me whether I feel it or not. Now there I'm persuaded. I sometimes feel God's presence, but uh plenty of times I don't, but I know he's with me. That's maturity as a Christian. And yet I do feel his presence more than I used to because my heart is softer, and because I am persuaded. So I want to encourage you wherever you're at, let's say a quick prayer. Father, you are real. We know you're real. We want to be persuaded that you're for us. We want to be persuaded that you're the faithful friend we can talk to about anything, and that you've already provided for us in your promises. God, we're not trying to get you to do it. We are saying thank you that you've done it, and we are fighting for it to come to full um reality in our life because you're good. You said you love to see the prosperity of your own kids. Father, we want to have the life you've already promised us and be a light in this world because this world needs it. Thank you. All right. In Jesus' name, so be it. Amen. Now, FYI, God says he numbers the very hairs on your head. He's obsessed with you. He loves to bless his kids. And if we know how to give good gifts to our kids, the Bible says, how much more does he want to bless you? So let me just encourage you today. God is for you, whether you feel like it or not, whether it's looking like it or not. Scripture also said he's all the while at work within you to will and to do his good pleasure. God's always working in you, he has blessed you. Read the book of Ephesians. And keep speaking life over yourself. Speak it over your family. That's part of the fight of faith. And get in his word so you're persuaded that he's for you because he is. Hey friend, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Would you share this with someone else who may need to hear it or go on this journey with you? Also, please take 30 seconds and leave a quick review for the show on Apple Podcasts. And of course, subscribe if you haven't already. It really makes me happy to know this podcast is helping you. And remember, a link to get my book is in the show notes. Thank you for listening. I'll see you back next Monday for another episode. Until then, remember, be kind to you because it makes it a whole lot easier to be kind to anybody else.